The brand and TBWA\Chiat\Day want you to step up your tweets when he's on his game

The NBA is arguably the most social media friendly sports league, and that focus is beginning to seep into ads featuring NBA stars. While other leagues have tried to clamp down on copyrighted materials across social media, the NBA has generally opened content to the masses, with the result being vibrant digital communities like #NBATwitter and the NBA subreddit.

Young stars have been able to leverage social media to build personal brands beyond on-court performance. Joel Embiid, the star and big man for the Philadelphia 76ers, didn’t even play his first two years in the NBA due to a string of injuries. Despite not being on the court, he was a fan favorite thanks to an active Twitter presence. Once he finally broke out in 2017, Embiid immediately became one of the league’s young icons, thanks in large part to his rabid digital audience.

Now agency TBWA\Chiat\Day is leveraging Embiid’s love of social media for a new Mountain Dew campaign that aims to up fans’ GIF game when it comes to celebrating his plays.

“The new Dew commercial featuring Joel Embiid is exciting new territory for us because it does more than send an advertising message. It’s a call to action to do something,” said Erin Chin, senior director of marketing for Mountain Dew. “Dew fans as well as NBA fans are always fully plugged into hoops culture, and we know they are almost always on social media during the games. So we teamed up with Giphy to make the GIFs from the TV commercial accessible on Instagram.”

Strategically, the ad hits Mountain Dew’s target audience of digital-native young adults with a two-pronged content approach: a spot that plays up Embiid’s charms and lightly branded GIFs that will fuel his fans’ love for social media.

The top two YouTube comments showcase the best and worst extremes of reactions from this target audience. One commenter said it made them want to buy Mountain Dew. The other promised to blame Mountain Dew if Embiid experienced diarrhea again in the playoffs (a reference to his 2019 battle with stomach flu).

TBWA\Chiat\Day’s campaign highlights a clear trend of brands partnering with Giphy to amplify their ads and partnerships. Today, for example, Jif peanut butter (by way of Publicis agency PSOne) launched a limited-edition jar labeled Gif in partnership with Giphy, with the product selling out in hours.

Mitch Reames is a freelance writer based in southern Oregon. A 2017 graduate of the University of Oregon school of journalism and communications, Reames covers a wide range of industry topics including creativity, agencies, brands, esports and more.